My Apartment Now Runs on 100% Renewable Electricity
And it only cost me $30.
Introduction
I’ve recently been awakened to the threat of our imminent climate crisis and wanted to do my part to personally reduce emissions. I’ve seen the classic line, “We must cut our emissions in half by 2030,” hundreds of times but only recently found out what happens if we don’t meet these targets. The science is clear: we need to keep global warming under 3.5°F because we simply don’t know what will happen if we go above it. To put that into perspective, the Earth was only 10°F cooler during the last ice age. I personally don’t want to find out what happens if we let things get much warmer.
So, I’ve been researching the most impactful changes I can make to reduce my emissions and hopefully inspire others to do the same. Since roughly 25% of our emissions come from energy use, that seemed like a good place to start. Luckily, reducing my energy use emissions was way easier (and cheaper) than I thought. You’d think I would have had to buy more efficient appliances or convince my apartment complex to install solar panels, but all I had to do was go online and spend $30.
You might be thinking this is too good to be true and I’m a fraud. But you should really be thanking me for saving the planet! I’m simply following the rules that big corporations use when reporting their carbon emissions. If it’s fine for them, it should be fine for me too right? I’ll lay out my method in full below, so you too can claim to use 100% renewable energy and make a huge impact like me.
How do you measure emissions?
Measuring emissions is the first step you’ll need to take. There are many competing standards for carbon accounting, but the most popular is currently the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
Under the GHG protocol there are three types of emissions:
Scope 1: Direct emissions from owned or controlled sources (e.g., emissions from company vehicles or factory processes).
Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased energy, primarily electricity.
Scope 3: Emissions not directly produced by the company but from their value chain, including suppliers and customers (e.g., from the production and transportation of goods). Scope 3 is not mandatory to report.
So when I say I am running 100% renewable electricity, I’m reducing my Scope 2 emissions. To measure Scope 2 emissions you first need to calculate the total amount of electricity used. That was simple enough, I just looked at my electric bills and found my total for the last year: 2251 kWh, or about 2.25 mWh.
However, it’s not as simple as running your usage through some kWh-to-CO₂ conversion formula. Due to how the electricity grid functions, it’s impossible to pinpoint the true source of the electricity you use when you turn a light on. All the different sources of electricity, coal, gas, solar, etc. get thrown into one big pool of electricity. Your house then draws from that pool and your electricity could technically have come from any source, dirty or clean.
So how can a company like Amazon legally claim they’re using 100% renewable electricity while America’s power mix still relies on fossil fuels? Since our electricity grid is a shared pool, an instrument called a renewable energy credit (REC) was created to let people and companies claim renewable energy use without direct consumption of green energy.
What Are RECs and How Do They Work?
RECs represent proof that one megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was generated from a renewable energy source, such as wind or solar. The renewable generator receives the RECs and sells them to others as a kind of “receipt” for renewable electricity. So companies can buy RECs to prove some amount of their electricity consumption came from renewables, even if they’re still technically using fossil-fuel-generated electricity. This can make sense if the renewable source actually supplies the buyer’s local grid, meaning some renewable power could reach the buyer.
The tricky stuff happens because you can actually buy an REC that was generated anywhere in the country, that couldn’t possibly deliver power to your location. For example, I live in California and I can buy an REC from a solar farm in New York. This type of REC is referred to as an unbundled REC because it’s separate from the actual delivery of power. This setup lets companies claim renewable energy use without changing their actual energy mix.
So for my own claim, I went online to find an REC seller and found that covering my home’s 2.25 mWh usage would only cost $30. In fact, I’m technically carbon-negative with this purchase of 3 mWh. So there you have it! That’s how I can legally claim I use 100% renewable electricity.
Do RECs actually help fight global warming? Not really.
If this sounds too good to be true, it probably is. RECs were supposed to lead to more renewable energy production by giving producers some extra cash. However, studies have shown that REC purchases don’t actually reduce emissions. The problem with RECs, especially unbundled RECs, is that they don’t reduce emissions at the point of consumption. They simply let companies claim the environmental benefits of renewable energy generated elsewhere, even though they still consume power from fossil fuel-heavy grids. The best case is that they provide a small, short-term revenue stream for existing renewable projects, but what we really need is new project development.
It's clear that the current system of using RECs to meet net-zero pledges is flawed. If RECs don't incentivize real changes in energy consumption or generation, they can’t help us achieve meaningful emissions reductions. It’s time to stop allowing unbundled RECs to count towards Scope 2 emissions. Companies love them because they’re cheap and relatively painless. But solving our climate crisis will not be painless. Companies cannot be allowed to throw some money at unbundled RECs, meet their net-zero pledge, and absolve themselves of any further responsibility. Once we get rid of this loophole, they will be forced to use solutions that actually help build new renewable projects, like power purchase agreements.
So, unfortunately, my claim that I’m using 100% renewable electricity is bogus. It was fun while it lasted, but real change isn’t easy! I still want to reduce my emissions, so I’m going to replace the incandescent lightbulbs in my bathroom and will actively try to use less electricity. It may not be as easy as I thought, but it’s still worthwhile. However, while individual actions matter, we can’t tackle this crisis on personal efforts alone. We don’t have the time to allow corporations to skate by with ineffective solutions while we turn our lights off and try to recycle. At a systemic level, meaningful change will require implementing rules that drive actual emissions reductions, not just accounting loopholes.